


The tides of war

by FreeShavocadoo



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Eventual Romance, Graphic Violence, Introspection, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-20 20:15:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16144697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreeShavocadoo/pseuds/FreeShavocadoo
Summary: Every waking moment Tommy thinks he's closer to dying on Dunkirk beach. He doesn't expect himself to ever make it back home, but things have an odd way of coming full circle.





	1. Survival

It was a quintessentially British thing, to find yourself lost.

Be it due to manners or awkwardness or just being the type of person who is embarrassed to be seen as just not _knowing_. It was a universal feeling of uncertainty and slight inadequacy and it was a feeling that Tommy wasn’t sure he should be having in the midst of a military evacuation.

The beach of Dunkirk was vast, Tommy is certain under other circumstances he’d probably find it rather quaint, but that was completely overlooked by the sea of olive-green uniformed men. The queues were relatively ordered considering the odds stacked against them, for which Tommy was both grateful and regretful for. A lack of chaos was a welcome reprieve from the endless running and escaping he’d been doing, yet the seeming normality of the lines of men unsettled his survival instinct. Standing on the beach like this, they were fish in a barrel and it wouldn’t take long for the Luftwaffe to come and pick them off. There was nothing quite like the sound of a Stuka siren wailing above your head for what seemed like the hundredth time, yet still just as effective as the first in its ability to have you eating sand in an attempt to drop as low and far away from danger as possible.

By the time he’s spotted the figure mere footsteps away from him, he’s already been near the sand dunes for over thirty seconds.

_Some soldier you are, Tommy._

He seems anxious, darting eyes and a downturned mouth, as if he’s both grieving and paranoid at the same time. Tommy supposes he can relate to this in some way, if he’d at least had time to be upset in the first place. Bullets flying past your head and a closing perimeter hardly permitted it.

_He’s burying someone._

It wasn’t the first dead body Tommy had seen and he doesn’t doubt it won’t be the last. Although, in some ways he’s thankful the body is already buried mostly other than a foot sticking out of the sand. Without a word, Tommy joins the stranger, pushing sand over the body with little decorum. It does the job though and he’s rewarded with his first drink of water in over a week, the feeling of the water passing his lips an indescribable one, not stopping until it was all gone to finally put the canteen down. The stranger says nothing, watching him with eyes that seem to look but not truly _see_ , but that’s hardly new. Most of the boys Tommy had left with had the same look about them after a mere month of combat, of running and surviving by the skin of their teeth. He’d rather not think about the teenagers he’d grown up with, all barely getting hair on their chin before they were packed up and sent off to war with the feeling of their mother’s tears against their cheek still fresh.

Tommy is just glad the stranger isn’t talkative. There’s hardly anything he’d want to talk about anyway.

He’s certain he’s still lost when he’s picking up a stretcher, the stranger wordlessly behind him in an instant, all eyes and no sound. Tommy thinks, briefly, it should be unnerving as a soldier to be around someone who’s soundless. Especially someone you don’t know. Yet, he picks up the stretcher, gives Tommy one nod and all Tommy can see is home, is hard and solid ground and not sloping sand under his feet and salty air in his mouth. There’s an odd sense of adrenaline, like he’s back at school being caught doing something he shouldn’t, an escape attempt that is hardly noble nor valiant yet his feet move forwards to the Mole anyway as if of their own accord. He doesn’t need to look behind him to know the stranger is just as eager as he is to make it to the destroyer in time, he can feel the stretcher pushing against the back of his legs urgently.

_Maybe he’s lost, too._

The euphoria from balancing the stretcher and his feet across a meagre plank of wood to cross the gaps in the Mole is brief, the cheering still ringing in his ears as his feet finally step on the ship. As soon as the stretcher is down, Tommy knows it’s a matter of time before someone notices them both. He sticks out like a sore thumb, it’s a hospital ship not a ship used for general evacuation. Like he senses Tommy’s unease a man ushers them both off, blunt and without time for argument. Not that Tommy would argue. He’s resigned to his fate as he goes to step off the ship yet he hears it, the stranger beckoning him from below the Mole, as if he too can’t bear the thought of missing out an opportunity to get out whilst they’re still ahead. The brief solstice, the passing moment of thinking they may be able to somehow get on the hospital ship is shattered as soon as the Stuka sirens wail overhead once more, rendering the ship useless and all of the injured aboard doomed. The wails of the men attempting to jump from the ship and escape, the wails of the men trapped below deck and the panicked cries of those who are already in the water and two seconds away from being crushed by the entire weight of a steel death trap dangling above them in the water. A beacon of hope, a red cross on a white background, now just a steel tomb. When Tommy reaches his hand out to a boy, no, _man,_ a hair’s breadth from being trapped under the weight of the ship, the man allows himself to be pulled upwards onto the Mole’s structure without question. He nods breathlessly, a ghost of a smile.

 _He seems at ease._ Tommy thinks. _Like he knows where he’s been and where he’s going._

When the commander tells them that he’ll find them a new boat, there’s barely a second thought about dipping himself in the water until he’s drenched, not wanting to be left behind. The stranger from the beach does the same as well, barely sparing him a glance as he pulls himself upright. The stranger from the water says nothing about their behaviour, doesn’t tell anyone that they clearly weren’t from that ship, that they should wait in line like everyone else. There’s an odd sense of solidarity in the air when they finally reach the destroyer, climbing up to their lifeline in a barely orderly fashion. Life jackets, tea and toast. The simultaneous feeling of safety and home on his lips yet the air is still salty and the swaying of the boat reminds him he’s not safe. Not yet.

“Where’s your mate?”

Tommy can’t place the accent of the stranger. _Alex._ He said his name was Alex. Tommy’s eyes dart around, so used to having the stranger barely a step behind him as if he were Tommy’s own shadow that he didn’t even realise he was gone. He ought to ask his name at some point, he thinks.

“Looking for an easy exit.”

Alex has the same look Tommy imagines he does, the darting eyes looking for the exit now he realises he’s once again in a steel coffin two seconds away from a dive bomb dropping on them or a torpedo rendering the ship useless. Neither speak as they push soundlessly through the crowd, the oddly elated crowd cheering as the ship begins to make way. Tommy can’t shake the unease from his gut, the feeling like he’s one step away from something horrible again. He can see the door from here, the thick layer of steel with the wheel-handle shut tightly. Airtight was good if you were under regular circumstances. Now, though, Tommy finds himself thinking of it as more of a tombstone for them all than a door protecting them from the outside. What was on the inside was just as dangerous. A mass of desperate and weary men who just wish for home.

Right on cue, the scream of _torpedo_ seems to come a little too late and the lights flicker off instantly, the mass of people who were elated mere seconds ago now a flurry of scared and panicked hands and feet. Tommy can feel himself being pushed and dragged in every direction, the weight of the water pushing him down further than he feels he’ll ever be able to get up from. He’s not sure if the lack of air or the pressure from being pushed between so many people will kill him, but briefly he’s reminded of holidays swimming by the seaside when he was younger. Head under the water, holding his breath and only seeing bouncing lights on the reflection of the water until his head would emerge to his mothers open arms. As if he’s dreaming, the ship door opens and lets in a burst of light and before he can even fully process he’s up and out of it, gasping for air and tasting nothing but salt and desperation on his lips. He dives into the water, not wanting to look back. Not wanting to hear the wails of those too unlucky, too slow to have gotten their exit.

_Lost again._

The rowboats are too full for them, yet the stranger throws a rope for Tommy and Alex anyway, looking nervous but giving Tommy a reassuring nod, like he too is in need of reassurance from having someone familiar nearby. Tommy supposes he can understand. If you have a near death experience with someone more than once that ought to count for something.

He isn’t even sure how long they sit on the beach for. It seems like an eternity, the wind whirring past their ears and seeming to chafe against their already sensitive skin. He’s never entirely dry, always with a boot in the water or his entire lower body. He can feel the aching in his bones all the way up his back and his neck, curled up so small in on himself it’s a miracle he hasn’t folded into nothing. When he finally sits upright, a man walks past them with such resolve Tommy briefly wonders if they’re all about to be saved. Then he throws his gun and satchel off, wading into the water until he’s waist-high. Tommy sees him move with the first wave but then the second one seems to swallow him entirely and for a second, Tommy wonders if he should do the same. Shed his skin and jump into the water and let it swallow him up like it’s been dying to this entire time.

Gibson. That’s what his tag says. Tommy hasn’t bothered to ask him directly and Gibson hasn’t bothered to say, but that suits him fine. His voice is hoarse from swallowing so much sea water anyway and words seem as meaningless as their waiting on the beach does. Yet still, they wait. Alex seems the most restless, always seated further away from them, hands always grasping onto something. Sand, his pants, his jacket or his hair. Like he needs to find purchase in something to feel whole. He’s seen the type before, the man that would discard everything in his rush to remain breathing, who’s priority was not living but surviving. It was an often-mistaken distinction. To live was to accept what you’d done and move on, yet surviving required no such morality and equilibrium. You simply clung onto life with whatever method you could, everyone else be damned.

_I’m pretty sure we’re all damned._

As if the universe is aware of Tommy’s train of thought, Alex stands and runs over to a group that seem to be brimming with purpose, marching towards the edge of the perimeter. Tommy thinks for a millisecond that this may be a worse idea than having the door shut behind them on the ship was, yet his feet move towards this sense of familiarity before his head catches up and Gibson isn’t far behind. It is like having a shadow, Tommy thinks, but that suits him just fine. A fingertips reach away but not overbearing. He couldn’t bear all of the questions that he’d gotten ever since he’d enlisted.

_Where are you from? What are you doing? What do you miss the most? What are you going to do when all of this is over? Got anyone waiting at home for you?_

Climbing into the small boat should seem like a more terrible idea than it does, yet the conviction of the men around him seems to lull him into complacency if only for a moment. Or maybe it’s the way Gibson’s eyes meet his and he stares with some kind of hope, some kind of wish, before flickering away. Maybe it’s the way Alex stares at him with burning seafoam eyes that are both demanding and seeking approval, as if Tommy’s quiet demeanour and rather passive tendencies have a shred on someone who commands presence without even trying.

_You knew he was the type._

Alex is already pointing someone else’s gun at Gibson, fear and fury in his eyes like a cornered dog, ready to bite.

_You knew he’d throw everyone else under the bus to come out alive._

The adrenaline never fully leaves Tommy but still, it swirls more in his stomach now than it did before, as if warning him that it’s about to happen. He’s about to be near death again, on the precipice. Gibson looks to him, for help or for reassurance or even to find distaste in his eyes. Tommy isn’t sure. Alex is certain, his voice ringing.

_German? That’s unlikely._

_Isn’t it?_

When Tommy looks at Gibson, pleading with him to tell them he isn’t German, that there’s no need for him to be forcibly removed to what is surely a death sentence, he can see it already. Gibson clearly is only grasping onto the situation by what he can see, sense and feel. And it wouldn’t take a genius to know he’s in a situation that doesn’t have any good outcome. Tommy wishes he could have the resolve of Alex, to discard someone else so quickly for his own survival. He doesn’t even hold it against him, but that doesn’t mean he has to agree with it. They all want off this God-forsaken beach.

“ _Je suis Français_.”

The fear in his voice is as palpable as the tension and no matter how much Tommy argues with Alex over it, he knows it’s only a matter of time before he and Gibson end up thrown from the ship and riddled with bullets, or the bullets decorating the ships stern sink them all to the bottom of the ocean. They can’t all even argue cohesively once the water starts pouring in, hands plugging bullet holes fruitlessly, as if they’re not all going to die out at sea.

Tommy is the first to make his way to the ladder and pull himself out and before he jumps out he remembers the door opening on the destroyer, the light glimmering under the blanket of water he was trapped in.

_Gibson._

Alex drags himself out next and Tommy pays him no mind, aware that no matter what he does, he’s the most likely contender of them all to survive this entire experience.

“Gibson?” Tommy says breathlessly, choked.

Alex points downwards, to the ladder that has nobody on it. Against every survival instinct in his body Tommy dives in the ship again, holding his breath and staring wildly back and forth to find him. Flailing hands show him exactly where Gibson is, his ankle tangled in chains as he writhes around terrified. Tommy tries to swim down as fast as possible, unwrapping the chain from Gibson’s ankle with as much speed as he can manage even though the weight of it combined with the compression of the water and the ship sinking makes it harder than it has any right to be. When the chain comes loose, he pushes Gibson up without a second thought and getting the message, Gibson swims up to the top without pause and it doesn’t take long for Tommy to join him. The sting of being able to breathe again is a familiar one, but when Tommy sees the fear and the edge in Gibson’s eyes he’s glad he went back. Not that he has much time to be with another destroyer being dive-bombed and circling overhead when they’re all coated in oil. The civilian vessels float nearby, like canaries in a mine, reminding Tommy that he’s got to get out of the water as soon as possible.

_You’re running out of time._

Gibson and Alex make it to the small boat before he does, _the moonstone_ , a boat that definitely wasn’t made to be stomped on by soldiers and covered in oil and sand and dirt. Not that any of that matters now. Tommy barely slides his hand into Gibson’s before the boat starts moving, away from the oil and the impending crash of a Stuka into the oil. Tommy’s face is too far under the water to see the devastation but he can hear it, the screams. People consumed by flames or having to resign themselves to drowning rather than to stick their head above water and burn to death from their neck up. Finally, it slows, enough for him to poke his head above water and see both Alex and Gibson peering over the edge at him with wide eyes. Alex offers his hand as though he’s scared Tommy won’t take it, as if he thinks Tommy would rather rest the entirety of his trust on Gibson. Who could blame him if he did?

_It’s war. We all want to go home._

He takes Alex’s hand and lets them both heave him upwards with minimal effort. He was scrawny before he went off to war. Now he was just skin and bones. All hard edges and no soft lines, sunken in cheeks and soulless eyes. That’s what most of them looked like by this point. Seated, standing, covered in oil and still on edge even when they’re far enough away to not even see the smoke rising from Dunkirk anymore.

From the corner of his eye he can see Gibson staring at Alex with weary eyes, not malice but just tiredness. Tommy imagines watching his home burning to the ground, with the threat of German occupation or death, or worse. Being resigned to your fate at a POW camp. It’s not hard to fathom why Gibson _or whatever his actual name is_ was trying as desperately as they were to get off the beach. It was equally understandable why the highlanders became desperate enough to think making one person jump ship would be enough to save them all.

 _We’re lost_.

They’re quiet on the train. Gibson sat beside Tommy, not making a sound, as though he’s ready to be outed as a Frenchman again in front of everyone. Alex looks considerably more pitiful than Tommy expected, all stormy eyed and bitten lipped. His arrogance from before seems to have weighed him down somewhat, now seeming to stare everywhere as though seeking acceptance or comfort. Tommy isn’t sure how to comfort himself, let alone someone else, so he settles down and allows sleep to weigh down on him.

 

* * *

 

 

He never thought he’d end up near a beach again. It had been years, after all, but still. His aversion to being submerged in water meant he avoided long baths and preferred a fast shower in the morning with water that was almost scalding. Even the smell of saltwater tended to set him on edge, his mother’s idea a mere 6 months after returning home of walking along the promenade at Brighton enough to make him cry when he got home. He knew it hurt her, to see him in a pain she couldn’t understand. But what really hurt her was the fact his older brother had died in action and she’d at least got Tommy back, only to find that there was a part of her youngest son that was on the beach somewhere in Dunkirk that he’d never get back. Sometimes he’d think about the men who’d waded into the water all those years ago and just let the sea take them. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it before.

It had been agonising, finding some routine of normality after the war. The months after Dunkirk had been painstaking, more months of being in infantry and treated as means to an end. He wasn’t of a mind to get philosophical about it yet still, it was clear that his life meant nothing in the grand scheme. Before they’d all gone their separate ways after Dunkirk, Alex had given Tommy a small piece of paper with an address on it and his full name. He’d given a cocky smile, told Tommy to ‘soldier on’, then gotten off at his stop without so much as a glance back.

Gibson had stayed attached to Tommy’s side until he had to split, Tommy having the sense to give Gibson his address and full name. ‘To write, if you want’, he’d said. As though they had lots to talk about given that Gibson knew minimal English and had only bad experiences associated when Tommy was present.

After it was all said and done, Tommy had moved away from his family, moved to a small seaside town. He doesn’t know why, particularly. It was cheap, it was quiet, and he didn’t know all of the faces there. He didn’t have to walk down the street seeing the mothers of boys he grew up with, mothers who’d lost their sons and would stare even without meaning to as if to say, ‘why are you back and my son isn’t?’. Having enough money to get by more or less meant part-time work at a bakery was more of a routine than a necessity, yet it was a welcome reprieve. Especially when one day a familiar mess of dark brown hair and hazel eyes walks in for a loaf of bread, speaking in accented English.

“Gibson?” He’d said, without even thinking. Gibson’s head turns slowly, not surprisingly considering it isn’t his real name.

“Tommy?” He says, as though he may have forgotten the name or gotten it wrong.

The owner of the bakery was more than willing to let Tommy have a small break, telling him he works hard enough to have a longer lunch hour than usual. Tommy isn’t really sure what to say to settles for walking along the beach with Gibson, finding it weirdly nostalgic in a sense.

“What are you doing…. here?” He asks, cursing himself inwardly for his terrible wording and general awkwardness.

“Couldn’t go home yet.” Gibson replies, staring at Tommy in a way that doesn’t make Tommy’s skin crawl the way staring usually does. His eyes are soft and he looks even younger than he did all that time ago.

“Oh.” Tommy says, feeling more ridiculous by the second. Is it weird to feel like you know someone without actually knowing anything about them? He imagines a lot of soldiers felt that way getting home. The sense of comradery without any of the actual substance. Not that it was entirely superficial, but outside of the constriction of war it made little sense.

“My family had to move elsewhere. I stayed here.”  

“Huh?” Tommy stares at Gibson with confusion until it dawns on him. _Idiot._ “Oh, right.”

“What are you doing here?” He asks, blinking several times as if Tommy is an apparition, bound to disappear if he doesn’t pay enough attention. It is a relatable feeling, as if you’re seeing a ghost from a past you want to forget.

“Just wanted to get away, I guess.” Tommy stares ahead at the soft lull of the sea, the sun bouncing on the water and the gentle breeze.

_It’s nothing like Dunkirk. It’s nothing like the day I met you._

“I see.” Gibson stares as if he can see through all of Tommy’s false pretences and it makes him nervous, but also feels oddly safe. Like no matter what he sees he’s not going to judge Tommy for it.

He was bound to fall back into footsteps with Tommy, anyway. It seemed like their routine.

 

* * *

 

 

The first letter Alex sends is short and sweet, telling him that he shouldn’t have moved away so fast if he intended to be able to get letters, telling Tommy he had a job writing small articles in a local newspaper and asking what Tommy was up to. Apparently, his mother had given Alex his new address, telling him later via her own letters that she was ‘glad he had some friends to talk to’. There was something oddly embarrassing about that statement, though she’d seemed considerably less stressed about Tommy’s wellbeing since he said he had a new roommate.

The roommate who seemed to slink around silently, who still occasionally had to get out his French to English dictionary. Sometimes Tommy would catch him just sat there staring right at him, with a slightly agape mouth and flushed cheeks. Tommy being his awkward self just ignored it and continued on with his day, pushing back thoughts that plagued his every waking moment. He’d never found anything that special about girls, always assuming his aversion to them was because of their aversion to him specifically. He was hardly the most attractive teenager and still wasn’t much of a looker now. Yet, something about the way Gibson looked at him made him feel oddly special, like he wasn’t being stared at but being looked at instead.

One night, when Tommy feels like the blanket weighing him down is water instead, like he’s coated in oil two seconds away from going up in flames he feels arms around him. When his eyes open, it’s still pitch black in his small room, the door to Gibson’s even smaller room open. He feels the breath against the back of his neck and the arms tighten around him. Just like when he threw the rope out to Tommy all that time ago, he’s saving him again, putting his own worries aside to comfort Tommy. It makes him want to cry, so he does. Gibson turns him around, strong arms and firm hands manoeuvring him until when he looks under his wet eyelashes he sees him, his concerned eyes and furrowed brows. He pets Tommy’s hair gently and opens his mouth as if he wants to speak but can’t find the words in English. It doesn’t matter much to Tommy. Gibson’s presence is enough to lull him away from choking sobs to hushed ones, nuzzling his head into Gibson’s neck and smelling lavender not salt water.

They don’t move the entire night.

By the time the sun cracks through the curtains, Tommy’s throat is slightly hoarse from falling asleep not long after crying and his eyes are sensitive to the light. When he buries his head back downwards he realises it isn’t his pillow he’s nuzzling into, it’s Gibson. Peeking up he can see that familiar expression on Gibson’s face again, the pink cheeks and the parted lips.

_He feels like home._

So Tommy finally decides to take something for himself and kisses him, clambering over him like some graceless teenager, hands either side of Gibson’s head as he leans down to kiss him properly. Like he deserves. Gibson makes small noises, fisting his fingers into Tommy’s shirt and groaning quietly, moving upwards eagerly. Tommy doesn’t think he’s ever wanted someone so much who wants him back.

Not like this.

The knock on the door has them both freezing, Tommy sitting upright instantly and staring out of his bedroom towards the living room, right at the door to his apartment. He gives Gibson a brief look before standing, shutting the room to his door behind him and hiding all evidence of Gibson with it. Padding over to the door Tommy feels oddly apprehensive, fingers curling around the handle after unlocking it, cracking it open slightly. For a second, he’s sure he’s dreaming.

_Alex._

“Hey, mate.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey mate.”

_This can’t be real._

Alex. Alex who’d been saved by Tommy and Gibson on separate occasions but was willing to throw them out of a boat to their inevitable deaths. Who took a gun so easily, so casually, and pointed it at someone with such panic and fury just because he was French, because it was easier to push out someone he had less in common with than the face the alternative. That it didn’t matter what he did, the boat was going to sink like so many before it. Tommy had found it within himself some time ago to forgive Alex in his own way, justifying his need to let go of the past as a necessity to move on. Not that he had moved on, otherwise he wouldn’t be standing at his door like a gormless idiot with Alex two steps in front of him.

_He hasn’t changed much._

His letters were always to the point, much like Alex was, simply updating what he was up to and what he was going to do. He seemed to have much more structure in his life and far more aspirations than Tommy did, unsurprisingly. He spoke about how he’d written all of these articles that frankly, Tommy couldn’t even remember since they were hardly anything he’d read. His family were fractured, that much Tommy knew from the little pieces Alex had given him. He was now, like Tommy was until a few months ago, living by himself somewhere in London. Like Tommy would ever visit a place that crowded and rowdy unless his life depended on it, and quite frankly, he didn’t want to do things just for survival anymore.

“What are you doing here?” He manages, voice hoarse. He keeps a grip on the door, as if he can actually shut it in Alex’s face.

_He’d deserve it. Who shows up to someone’s apartment without warning them?_

“Hardly any way to treat an’ old friend is it?” Alex grins, all lopsided with arrogant dimples and twinkling eyes.

He barely looks like the same person. Acts like the same person but doesn’t look like the same person. His hair is slightly longer, curling more than it had back then, making him look somehow younger and less hard-edged. His eyes are softer and now Tommy can see just how green they look in normal lighting, away from death and destruction.

_I didn’t even notice he had dimples._

“Didn’t realise we were old friends.” Tommy replies dryly, shaking his head gently at how absurd the situation was. How they’d all ended up together again. He’s not so sure Gibson will forgive Alex quite so quickly, though.

“Rude. You gonna let me in or do I have to stand in your doorway like a tramp a little while longer?” Alex’s tone is jovial, like they really are old friends who are meeting up for the first time after a short break apart, so conversational and light-hearted.

Tommy isn’t sure what to think, opening the door for Alex to step in and watching him make his way over to a slightly battered couch.

What he doesn’t expect is for Gibson to stroll out of his room, fully dressed and looking as comfortable as he usually does. As if Alex isn’t sitting in their living room, the same Alex who almost got him thrown off a boat at Dunkirk, who was the reason he almost didn’t make his way back to Tommy all this time later in a shitty seaside resort bakery.

Alex looks like he’s seen a ghost, lips parted and eyes widened. More shocked or uncertain than Tommy had ever seen him, which is surprising considering the last time he’d seen him was on Dunkirk beach when they were always close to imminent death. He stares at Gibson as if he expects him to walk through the wall to get away from him, like he’s a figment of his imagination that Tommy can’t see as well. Gibson pauses in the middle of his menial tasks, almost as if he can sense himself being looked at, staring at Alex with curious brown eyes and a tilted head.

“Gibson?” Alex’s voice is small, uncharacteristically so, “I didn’t know you were…. here?”

“Yes,” Gibson says, matter-of-factly, “I have been for quite some time.”

Tommy isn’t sure if he wants to leave or laugh, the combination of Gibson’s learned formality with English and Alex’s bewildered expression leaning him more towards the latter until he can’t hold it in any longer and begins laughing. The kind of laughter that seems to bubble from deep in your stomach until you can’t even control it, sporadic and loud. Alex stares at him like he’s gone mad, though he starts chuckling softly after a few seconds as if seeing Tommy laugh gives him the irresistible urge to do so as well. Gibson’s eyes crinkle fondly, smiling at Tommy in a way that makes his stomach flutter with butterflies.

“We live together.” Tommy finally breaks the silence, wiping at his eyes a little after having teared up at the ridiculousness of the situation. The tension seems to have left the room, at least. “We have for a while. Bumped into him at the bakery I work at.”

“Bumped into him?” Alex’s voice is bemused, as though he finds the entire thing just as laughable now. “Of all the people and places, you bumped into Gibson in this shitty seaside resort in some little bakery?”

“That’s right.” Gibson sits down beside Tommy, cramped on the small couch now with all three of them sitting on it.

“You can stay. If you’d like. For a while, anyway.” Tommy says, feeling ungainly and awkward as ever between the two of them, Gibson with his beautiful warm eyes and Alex with his glaringly obvious beauty. It’s enough to make Tommy feel like he’s back in high school again, when he’d try to talk to girls when his friends would insist and they’d all laugh right in his face, as if the mere prospect of being seen with him for two seconds was laughable enough.

“You sure you’ve got room, or are there more soldiers from Dunkirk hiding in here?” Alex tilts his head inquisitively, before grinning at Tommy with twinkling eyes.

_Dickhead._

**Author's Note:**

> Another chapter to be added, of course. I didn't intend for this to be so long as an introductory chapter, yet the lack of dialogue in the film has somehow passed over into my writing as well.  
> Hopefully it's still a good read.   
> (It was loosely based on a prompt about being lost. Kind of fitting, really.)  
> Comments always majorly appreciated, let me know what you think!


End file.
